on hold (hold on)
by l0ngl0st
Summary: Three phone calls between Steve and Natasha, and one conversation made face-to-face. / Steve&Natasha, ficlet.
**A/N:** I am very bitter that Natasha didn't get so much as a nod at the end of Civil War after her confrontation with Tony, so. Contains Civil War spoilers.

* * *

 _on hold/hold on_

* * *

-1-

"About time, soldier," Natasha answers wryly, after the first ring.

Steve straightens. He'd hoped—guessed, even, when he first found the slip, because who else but Natasha could have had the foresight, the attention to detail—but the last few days have made him wary of expectations. "The new number tripped me up," he jokes instead.

"Consistency is boring," Natasha says airily. He can envision her leaning back in a chair, feet propped up, though her voice takes on a seriousness when she continues, "You might want to look into one for yourself."

"I'm working on it."

He rests a hand on the glass in front of him. Through the spaces between his fingers, mist creeps over the Wakandan jungle, and something about the dark treetops pulls at a thread in his chest, prompts him to share: "Bucky went back in cryo."

A pause. Not long, but enough.

"His choice," says Natasha, like she's testing a theory she already knows the answer to.

"His choice," confirms Steve, making a study of the back of his hand, now: knuckles newly healed, mint condition. "All this—" _dirty snow, metal, an arc reactor shuddering and dying,_ "—just to be the one to put him back under."

"Steve."

"Nat," he starts, and for a second it's like he can see her reflection next to him in the glass, solemn and contemplative and maybe just as unmoored as he is. "Thank you, for what you did. I know what you had to give up."

"My choice." Two words, a squeeze of comfort. "And I wouldn't thank me yet. Your work's not done."

His phone vibrates against his ear. Steve pulls away from it, frowning, in time to see an incoming text.

"I just sent you coordinates."

"To you?"

He can hear her smile. "I'm not that easy, Rogers."

"I'll see you when I see you, then." He's not sure if he's making her a promise or asking her to promise him.

"Say 'hi' to them for me, when you get them out," replies Natasha, and ends the call.

-2-

"I'm going to need your help breaking a tie," announces Steve over the sound of a microwave beeping, Clint rising to say, "I've got it."

"Let's hear it," says Natasha without missing a beat.

" _Avatar_ or _Titanic_?"

" _Titanic,_ clearly. So you can point out all the historical inaccuracies."

"I was born in 1920, not 1912," protests Steve.

"The fact that you know the year the Titanic sank off the top of your head says enough."

At that, he snorts, even as a grin steals over his face.

 _Natasha?_ mouths Sam; Steve nods.

"So?" prompts Clint, reentering the room with a bowl full of popcorn. "What's it going to be, Cap?"

Wanda waits for his answer, spinning the DVDs lazily in the air.

Some things, Steve thinks, are unsinkable. Not ships of state or the Ship of Dreams, but maybe what he has here: four people in a room doing their best to get by, to do better. A quiet kind of hope and a voice in his ear, warm with static and amusement.

" _Titanic,_ " he decides, as Scott boos from his spot on the floor and Wanda claps in delight.

"Enjoy it," chuckles Natasha.

-3-

 _We're sorry; the number you are trying to reach has been disconnected or is no longer in service._

-4-

"Do you ever get tired of running?"

An innocuous enough question posed by the woman who sinks onto the park bench, sweat from her morning jog coating her skin with a slight sheen. She brings a water bottle to her lips, takes a swig and speaks around it. "Because I'm starting to think I need a breather."

Flirtatious, for a stranger. But for a woman with those shoulders, those sunglasses resting on her cheekbones, that ghost of a smile, it's—more. Steve shifts, realizing that he's never seen Natasha with her hair up before; the sleek ponytail fully exposes the pale column of her neck, and the sight of this weak spot somehow makes _him_ feel vulnerable.

"I heard it's better with a partner," he offers, managing to wrestle his surprise into something steadier.

"One more person to keep track of."

"One more person to watch out for you," says Steve, and he can't help the _other_ that creeps into his voice when he asks, "Where did you go, Nat? Three months and not a single word."

"If I officially join up with you all, it won't be the Fab Five anymore," Natasha dodges, though her tone of voice tells him he'll get his answers later, when they're not two people with a carefully crafted distance between them, pretending to be strangers in a lonely park.

"So we'll be the Super Secret Six," he counters smoothly, watching as Natasha's mouth jumps at the ridiculousness of the phrase he's just uttered, at his willingness to bend to her teasing. His fingers curl against his thighs. He resists the urge to brush a flyaway strand of fiery red hair off her cheek, to pinch the end of her ponytail between thumb and forefinger to prove to himself that she's real. "We could do with your expertise, Nat. Maybe it's time for you to come back."

 _Home,_ he does not say, because you don't promise somebody something you're still searching for. Instead, he places his hand beside him on the bench. An offering. A question, of sorts.

"Maybe," says Natasha, letting her pinky rest lightly on top of his.


End file.
